Teamgame dominant meta

THe mortar pit is hard. Depending on game mode and map it is either tits OP or a waste of man power. It just seems difficult to make it work the way it needs to in its current form.

I really hate to see major changes but I think I have to say it needs to go and be replaced with some of the other suggestions we have seen through time. But I doubt Relic would let it happen.

I agree, it's just not possible to implement static defences with the "ebb and flow" concept of CoH. It's either too strong and spoils gameplay or too weak.

Stuka Dive Bomb
- In addition to being OP vs infantry, it also completely nullifies half of the available Soviet doctrines
- If you want an easy-click ability to counter howitzers, pick Railway artillery, instead

One could have howitzer unable to target-base sectors as most off map abilities.

On the other the cheapest ability that negate howitzer is the UKF hammer arty. 100 MU and not LOS needed. Usually comes earlier than Stuka.

In case anybody really wants to defend Stuka Dive Bomb check out this oldie but good thread by Mr. Smith that explains why the old Stuka Bomb ninja buff made it too good for its cost - https://www.coh2.org/topic/53665/rebalancing-the-stuka-dive-bomb

Edit - I would also like to add that Support weapons are also very difficult to dodge the Dive Bomb with when you consider the pack-up time vs. the delay of the bomb + its insane AoE + the extreme likelihood you are microing other units and can't respond instantly like the ability currently demands you too.

In case anybody really wants to defend Stuka Dive Bomb check out this oldie but good thread by Mr. Smith that explains why the old Stuka Bomb ninja buff made it too good for its cost - https://www.coh2.org/topic/53665/rebalancing-the-stuka-dive-bomb

Edit - I would also like to add that Support weapons are also very difficult to dodge the Dive Bomb with when you consider the pack-up time vs. the delay of the bomb + its insane AoE + the extreme likelihood you are microing other units and can't respond instantly like the ability currently demands you too.

So true.
+100

Yes, I know how player cards work. Yes, you played about 300 games with one friend who liked Allies. However, you have probably 6x as many games as Axis and your claim to play "as much" allies as axis is really not true. I can also see that all of your allied rankings are on hold so you haven't played any of them in a long time. You are a primarily axis player and claiming to be otherwise should be trolled. Note that I'm not criticizing your player card as a whole (as a whole, it is probably the best for a team player in 2v2 through 4v4 that I've ever seen), just don't pretend to be an allied player.

Also, I probably shouldn't have trolled as much as I did in this thread, but was annoyed because I don't think the OP was genuine in wanting to undo any of the imbalance that the last two patches created. That, plus most of the people who are most vocal are primary axis players and are asking for more allied nerfs, when the win rates in 2v2+ are already lopsided.

You certainly have a good reason to think I'm primarily an axis player based on my player card. I just started playing again after a 9 month Break and I'll be honest ive only played as Brits and ostheer ( my two favorite factions) since I started playing again. On the other hand I know what it was like to play USF 9 months ago and aside from the light vehicle nerfs and slight RM nerf there hasn't been many major changes.

Please try to understand that I played far more often before the WFAs and UKF were released which is why I have so many more Ostheer games than games as Allies. When I played with my friend I always had to play Allies since he was obsessed with the soviets and later the Brits. Nowadays I play axis and Allies equally depending on percent searching each side.

I feel like the majority of people on these threads are ally players but Maybe it's just a feeling... I'm looking for balance on both sides honestly. I don't think the Allies need any more nerfs except maybe a change to the way Brit mortars work.

Calliope
- Impossible to counter using Axis armour
- Rework barrage to Katyusha levels
- HP/Armour to Priest levels

All these are a good option, but with all those changes, you should lower the cost and CP. At the moment it is a very late piece that in the factions SOV/WEHR they have their pieces to leave much earlier and at lower cost with which they are very spamables.
In shot: nerf barrage, chassis and reduce costs and lower CP

Aura effects
- Soviet forward HQ

I do not know how to nerf his aura, but the change will be from OP to UP so the commander will be a trash and the players will not get the maximum performance from that OP ability. IMO so I suggest that that ability would be changed to call-in T-34/85, which would make a commander totally useful.
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Can we add a poll to these proposed changes?

All this time the balance has been guided by statistics and surveys. I hope that it is now followed with wisely by people who actually play the game. No more surveys pls.

intresting thing: if allies get a " design error" its ok (emplacments with brace)

if axis have maybe one...it should be removed.

Rather pathetic of you to create problems where they don't need to exist.

I do not know how to nerf his aura, but the change will be from OP to UP so the commander will be a trash

This is so with the most changes "suggested" here. They talk about more diversity with commanders, but in reality, they make much commanders useless and no one will play them anymore.
Crappy Sturmtiger that can not be combined with KT, no one will play it,
Pak43 for so much fuel and it still gets destroyed in seconds, no one will play it anymore,
Elefant that needs only 1-2 shots less than a panther to kill something, but can not escape and has to be secured be many units, no one will play it.
Same can happen with soviet FHQ commander.

for a similar reason demos are ok, too. if you're so lazy to send minesweepers in unguarded areas, you deserve to be punished. also what's the big gain of this game to encourage running around with single squads everywhere on the map? that's what DoW is there for. One of the best things about coh2 was that it provided more frontline based gameplay. Stupid things like that +16fuel point on the right side on Sturzdorf in coh1 (where you had to harrass all the time with single squads) are almost gone etirely

The big gain for having Single squads running around the map is that it prevents you from having to mass retreat your army off the map if you run into an hmg. Also allows you to know where the enemy is and how best to engage. Demos discourage this since you can't give all your units sweepers. This is mostly and issue in 1v1s and a bit it 2v2s. The higher the game mode the less territory you have to work with per player so less sweepers are needed so there's no excuse there.

Pak43 for so much fuel and it still gets destroyed in seconds, no one will play it anymore

I can't understand why won't the balance team (given that scope allows that) decrease popcap and cost of Brit AT emplacement to make it viable (but balanced) and then make Pak43 a copy of it so it becomes a real obstacle for tanks on the battlefield instead of being a weird wundercannon shooting through entire cities

Can you identify any single change that has a non-positive impact on 1v1/2v2?

The elefant and jagdtiger nerfs are justified in 4v4 perhaps, but still questionable since medium spam is a reality in 3v3 and 4v4. If you nerf them like you claim, there will never ever again be a reason to get a JT or Elefant in a 1v1 and the reason to get one in a 2v2 is questionable to say the least. Why get them if they can`t fight medium spam effectively? Not even a cost decrease?

Making Sturmtiger mutual with KT and nerfing its damage vs tanks. This will mean you will see it even less than you do now.

Trying to up the Crocodile´s main gun damage whilst not addressing its huge health pool or fast turning rate.

Not addressing IL2 bombing strike as being a one shot to howitzers etc.

Nerfing stugs. I am oke with the TWP nerfs, not the pop cap nerf though. Since there seems to be refusal about buffing the subpar Ostheer Panther in any regard, T4 will still be a rarity in 1v1 and 2v2. People will simply rely on trusty T3 units. Now you want to nerf them with a pop cap nerf and their TWP. This means T4 will still be unreliably and unviable, but T3 will now be more weaker since Ostheer p4 isn`t that great either.

Adding a lofty fuel cost to howitzers. Since we literally never see them in a 1v1 or 2v2, adding a fuel cost to them in a game that is driven by getting fuel early and securing favorable tech or call in spam to amass tanks seems so illogical to me. Same goes for the OKW Pak43. OKW is a very fuel taxed faction that now has to lobb even more fuel in their to get the pak43 lol. Good luck in 1v1 in a very hard fought game. Even their medium is a 150 fuel.

I however like the JP4, repair speed, firefly, emplacement/ISG, aura, usf pop cap abuse and demo charge reworks.

Note that those are not, necessarily the detailed changes we have in mind. I'm just giving the key changes for each unit. And, of course, none of those changes are final; this is why we brought this up as a topic of discussion.

We need feedback on:
- First of all, if this the right direction to go
- Secondly, if we forgot something
- Finally, once we address #1 and #2, better-finetune the trade-offs and the changes therein

I can't understand why won't the balance team (given that scope allows that) decrease popcap and cost of Brit AT emplacement to make it viable (but balanced) and then make Pak43 a copy of it so it becomes a real obstacle for tanks on the battlefield instead of being a weird wundercannon shooting through entire cities

Pak43 is, hands down, the better-designed version of the two.

Anti-tank guns should be resistant to tanks and vulnerable to infantry and indirect fire. 17 pounder has it all backwards.

The elefant and jagdtiger nerfs are justified in 4v4 perhaps, but still questionable since medium spam is a reality in 3v3 and 4v4. If you nerf them like you claim, there will never ever again be a reason to get a JT or Elefant in a 1v1 and the reason to get one in a 2v2 is questionable to say the least. Why get them if they can`t fight medium spam effectively? Not even a cost decrease?

They might be getting some AI utility at Vet0 to compensate. Both units are, at best, troll units in 1v1 and will remain so. Perhaps, with some fancy-looking AI barrage they will get some of their worth back.

Trying to up the Crocodile´s main gun damage whilst not addressing its huge health pool or fast turning rate.

Crocodile will need some nerfs. I'm just saying that the wipey-AI needs a tone-down and, if necessary, we should explore giving it some AT utility, as opposed to leaving it so deadly in the AI department. The buff in AT could come with additional nerfs, just as the ones that you mentioned.

If you've ever had to fight against a Crocodile & Firefly combo, you will immediately recognise what I mean.

Not addressing IL2 bombing strike as being a one shot to howitzers etc.

That's an omission that we could address with a munition price increase.

Nerfing stugs. I am oke with the TWP nerfs, not the pop cap nerf though. Since there seems to be refusal about buffing the subpar Ostheer Panther in any regard, T4 will still be a rarity in 1v1 and 2v2. People will simply rely on trusty T3 units. Now you want to nerf them with a pop cap nerf and their TWP. This means T4 will still be unreliably and unviable, but T3 will now be more weaker since Ostheer p4 isn`t that great either.

Popcap change will mean nothing for 1v1, since you rarely ever see people going above 2 Stugs. With the right kind of teams, however, you routinely get to see Stug 6-packs running around, and that's where a popcap of 8 gets really ridiculous.

We could make the MG upgrade better or cheaper (it's fixed arc after all) to compensate.

Adding a lofty fuel cost to howitzers. Since we literally never see them in a 1v1 or 2v2, adding a fuel cost to them in a game that is driven by getting fuel early and securing favorable tech or call in spam to amass tanks seems so illogical to me. Same goes for the OKW Pak43. OKW is a very fuel taxed faction that now has to lobb even more fuel in their to get the pak43 lol. Good luck in 1v1 in a very hard fought game. Even their medium is a 150 fuel.

You can't build howitzers in 1v1 because they cost a fuckton of manpower. 600MP in the late-game is simply too much. The idea is to offset the ridiculous MP cost with some FU cost, so that you aren't so completely bottlenecked.

If 50FU is too much for a 200MP discount, feel free to suggest an alternative price.

I am a long time player, have lurked in the forums a long time first time posting. I really like all the changes mentioned. I do just want to add to the stuka dive bomb sound. I think red smoke would make this ability fine. The only reason I say that is my 2v2 partner lost his hearing in his right ear and everytime he is up against wher with stuka it's game over for him.

Also side note for the love of god please reduce the rifleman mine planting time I swear it almost takes 10 seconds.... that is all.

Thanks balance team for the welcome changes.

Red smoke is one of the rules of the game since vCoH. Assault abillity marked with red smoke to give the opponent a chance to dodge it.

Stuka Dive Bomb don't follow several rules of the game:
1. It doesn't marked with red smoke like other assault abillities.
2. It doesn't deliver the bomb from offmap on the plane, like other planes bombing abillities.
2.1 Can't be countered by Anti-air defence.

IMO solving this exceptions will make this abillity less frustrating and OP in some situations.

Not to be petty but this is exactly how the v1 strike worked in vCoH.

I'm not saying it's fair.

Ideally, every faction should have at least 1-2 abilities that can fit the bill. Ostheer, in particular, also has railway artillery, which is cheap enough, which also does that. What makes Stuka Dive bomb so controversial however, is that nearly all the commanders that have it (except Storm) are already carried by the other abilities in the same commander.
- Jaeger Armor commander definitely doesn't need that ability
- CAS & Luftwaffe support should be better defined through their unique abilities, rather than let Dive Bomb dominate everything

Therefore, the question that arises is:
- Should Jaeger Doctrine, with the Elefant, also possess the hardcounter for Howitzers (Recon & Dive Bomb)?
- If we nerf Dive Bomb, should we compensate the other doctrines in some way (e.g., replace Dive Bomb with Railway arty for Storm, so that it's more similar to Soviet Combined Arms)

The problem with Railway Artillery (as you yourself noted) is that the commanders that have it are mostly complete and utter garbage (with the notable exception of the Osttruppen Commander, which is on the edges of being not utterly useless).
Then there is the second issue, that this idea places several completely differently performing abilities in the same class, so that some factions get a multi-purpose ability that is also their artillery counter, while other factions (like Ostheer in this particular case) basically end up with a worse version, because for example railway artillery is so slow that it can't be used for anything else.

And finally, your idea doesn't take the different ammunition sinks of different factions into account - as Ostheer, you are forced to upgrade your infantry, because they are inferior to anything but Conscripts without those upgrades. USF on the other hand doesn't have to upgrade every single squad to remain competitive (not to mention that Ostheer still suffers from higher wipe rates, which drive up ammo costs even further) and thus has an amount like 250 ammo much more easily to spare.

Not to be petty but this is exactly how the v1 strike worked in vCoH.

Well it was Bullshit too, knocking out Triage Centers and Supply Yards...

Not to be petty but this is exactly how the v1 strike worked in vCoH.

v1 took forever to hit, had immense cooldown and it was always obvious about where it would land.

It was still very cheese though since it would one shot most base structures.

What one should also consider is that axis mediums (PZIV) also get wrecked by firefly/m36/su-85 while being more expensive and thus are bad investments.

Most of 60+ range TDs need to be less effective vs mediums.